Fine Print
by Bag Of Badgers
Summary: Germany wears reading glasses, and Italy wonders why. Dante is involved as well. K.


Ludwig's worn glasses since the Second World War.

It's something Feliciano thinks about when there's not much else to think about, but it is odd. Reading glasses.

Really, why did he start needing them?

So Feliciano asks around, and sees why the other nations wear theirs.

Alfred got his after the Spanish-American War, and he's nearsighted. Matthew is farsighted, and he got them after the First World War. Berwald and Manon won't tell him, and Roderich… well. Roderich doesn't even have eye problems.

Feliciano thinks Gilbert is wrong about many things, and Roderich is not one of them at all.

But anyway, Ludwig's had his glasses since roughly 1946, and it's a little funny because before then he'd read just fine. Although Ludwig hadn't read much back then either, at least not that Feliciano could see, because they were always busy directing troops and you couldn't wear glasses and use a sniper rifle at the same time and half the stuff Ludwig reads now got set on fire anyway.

But now he reads whenever there's time, and Feliciano hasn't seen Ludwig fire a gun in years and years, and anybody setting books on fire in Ludwig's country gets in a _lot_ of trouble unless it was an accident.

So Feliciano will walk in from work and see Ludwig with the glasses on typing away at some report or other, and sometimes it's important and sometimes it's not, but he works anyway because it's Ludwig. Or it'll be a bad night (they don't happen so often anymore) and then Feliciano will shuffle out of the bedroom and see Ludwig asleep on the couch with his glasses on and a book on his chest (sometimes his face, and then when he wakes up he panics about accidentally drooling on the pages). Or it'll be like now, when Feliciano leans against the couch and sketches nothing in particular, and Ludwig sits in the armchair and reads- aw, he's reading Dante, Feliciano grins to himself-and occasionally "hm"s. And then Feliciano looks down and finds out that the nothing-in-particular he was drawing has turned into Ludwig sitting in the chair with his glasses on, looking at the book with raised eyebrows. Feliciano supposes that this is only fair, since he knows he's managed to sneak into just about every part of Ludwig's life it's only right Ludwig should do the same to him, but he'd at least like Ludwig to know it was happening. So he gets up and walks over to Ludwig, placing the sketchpad in front of his book, and says, "What do you think?"

Ludwig jumps a little and stutters out an "It's nice," and Feliciano smiles and swings himself onto the armrest, peering over Ludwig's shoulder.

"So what's happening?"

Ludwig doesn't even have to look at the book. "Virgil just stuffed Cerberus's mouth with mud."

"Oh!" Feliciano doesn't ask him to quote, he knows the lines and he knows Ludwig knows them, so he settles further into the armrest and starts reading over Ludwig's shoulder, and Ludwig pushes his glasses further up his nose- they slide down a lot- and turns the page.

The two sit in silence for a while, except for the turning of pages and an occasional "hey, go back- go back", and by the time they've reached Canto X Feliciano is in Ludwig's lap. Sometimes Ludwig stops and says "Wait, who's he talking about again?" and then Feliciano explains what he remembers about Guelphs and Ghibellines, and Ludwig nods.

It's dark by the time they've finished, and they both have work that really should be getting done, and dinner needs cooking, so Feliciano slides off Ludwig's lap and Ludwig stands up and takes off the reading glasses. It turns out that lots more work needs doing than they thought, so dinner turns out to be leftovers (still good, because they're Feliciano's leftovers and he does _not_ let good food go bad) and then there's paperwork, so the reading glasses go back on.

Feliciano asks him why halfway through a proposal on trade agreements with Spain. Ludwig looks up through the glasses and says, "For the fine print," and then keeps writing notes on the Reichstag's budget plans. Nodding, Feliciano turns back to the proposal.

He remembers when Germany didn't read the fine print, and he much prefers Ludwig this way.

Even with the occasional book stuck to his cheek.

* * *

Notes and such:

So half of this is personal headcanon, yes. Germany has glasses now because a bureaucrat doesn't need rifles and a soldier doesn't need reading glasses, and he'd much much _much_ rather be a bureaucrat now; and they represent his increased focus upon internal affairs and his citizens so that he doesn't need to be a soldier again.

America's glasses represent his turn away from isolationism (nearsightedness) after the Spanish-American War, and Canada's are his turn towards making his own policies instead of watching England's (farsightedness) and also his increased post-WWI agricultural expansion (again, focusing on things nearer to him). I have no idea what Sweden's and Monaco's (Manon's) are, and Austria's are in-canon stated to be aesthetic. Because Austria.

Dante et al: he was thrown out of Florence because of a dispute between the parties of the Guelphs and Ghibellines. Half the people in Hell in _Inferno_ are there because of personal grievances, which tells you something about Dante. (The Divine Comedy is basically medieval self-insert fanfiction where Dante gets to be praised by Virgil and Homer and other famous ancient poets. Also it's incredible.)

I have a feeling Lud didn't do much reading from 1933 or '35 on, mostly because lots of the good stuff was banned or burned. Fun times. (And then there was the whole deal with postwar Allied censorship, too, ugh) But now he's free to read whatever the heck he wants.


End file.
